Comment by mrb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrb | Hacker News Reader

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"But 1 port is sad, because now you have to choose between a lot of things (charging, using hdmi, whatever)"

No, USB Type-C allows multiple concurrent uses, such as: charging and using HDMI at the same time. See http://www.anandtech.com/show/8518/hands-on-with-usb-type-c-... : "This opens up the possibility for a dock scenario where a single cable to the monitor can charge a laptop and also mirror the laptop's display onto the external monitor, and the external monitor would also be able to serve as a USB hub for a keyboard, mouse, headsets, flash drives, and other USB peripherals."

Edit: @rakoo: I agree that in scenarios where you do not have a hub, it is annoying to have only 1 port. Even if the power brick integrates a USB hub it would be weird to have to plug a USB drive in the brick... I guess this opens a market opportunity: sell a tiny USB hub with 3 ports (type-C power in, type-C power out, type-A generic port) that is meant to be left almost permanently attached to the laptop or to the end of the power cord.

Theoretically, yes. But I'm not obsoleting my new 4K 60" screen to add a port. So if I want to output display to a monitor/projector and I'm low on battery, I better have a powered USB hub handy...

It may come with a 1-port USB plus power adapter in place of the standard power cable though?

Having a powered USB hub doesn't seem like a stretch next to a 60" monitor. It's not like the latter is very portable.

edit: vocabulary

On my desk I have two monitors, keyboard, mouse, microphone, webcam, laptop and an Antec USB charger which charges my phone, bluetooth headset, kindle and vita.

My laptop is connected to the power via magsafe and the monitors with HDMI and USB. Keyboard/mouse/webcam/microphone are connected to the monitors.

With the new USB-C plug I guess I'll be able to buy the hypothetical Antec "Super USB Charging Media Hub", which all my devices connect to. My laptop then only needs to plug into one thing.

I would really like PC manufacturers to standardize on this; it would make using laptops as nice as using non-Apple telephones/tablets/ereaders is now.

The decision to not include a single USB port is of course mind-boggling, especially given Apple's market. How are you supposed to share large files? No USB drives, no memory cards etc on the go.

With regards to sharing of files: it's a natural progression for Apple. They are moving everything to iCloud. In Mavericks, for example, they disabled syncing of notes/calendar/address book through the cable with iTunes. It feels like this is just one step further.

Needless to say, I'm not very happy about no USB just as I wasn't happy about syncing.

> In Mavericks, for example, they disabled syncing of notes/calendar/address book through the cable with iTunes.

They eventually released an update that re-enabled it, and it still works in Yosemite.

Hey thanks for this. I tested it out on Mavericks, and the only thing that doesn't sync anymore is the notes. Maybe I just can't find the setting in iTunes to sync that as well...

With all of those peripherals, I think it's clear you're not the intended market for this specific device and its single port strategy.

I'd think the opposite since his peripherals are fixed: type C is the logical extension of the thunderbolt display, with a single cable end to plug in when you reach your desk with your laptop.

I'm in a somewhat similar situation, when I reach home I plug in power, network, external display and USB devices, but these things don't move with me, they're fixed desk accessories. I've got a separate set of them at work.

Yes, but how do you plug your new USB key and your charger at the same time ? The only solution is to bring a hub with you everywhere.

I expect the charger will be a USB hub.

surprised this wasn't addressed in the keynote. I can see a lot of clever Apple-y solutions to this problem.

surprised this wasn't addressed in the keynote. I can see a lot of clever Apple-y solutions to this problem.

It wasn't addressed because Apple offers no solution (yet?).

It's not.

It's not.

If you need expansibility and are running a large external monitor, that sounds pretty 'professional' to me.

Currently Apple offers these two:

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1K2AM/A/usb-c-digital-av...

and

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1L2AM/A/usb-c-vga-multip...

Unfortunately both only have 1080p HD. Let's hope there will be a (mini-)DVI version with a higher resolution soon.

Thanks for the links! Both of those are quite 'ewww' of course.

So we have the "USB-C Charge Cable" $29 (http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJWT2AM/A/usb-c-charge-cab...) -- I wonder if that is proprietary or if any cable would work. Then there's the "USB-C Power Adapter" $49 (http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ262LL/A/apple-29w-usb-c-...).

Too bad they can't fit 29W into the smaller cube form factor which charges my phone. That would be incredible powering a laptop off of that.

Someone needs to create a much sleeker implementaion of a in-line 1-port hub. So basically something that looks like USB-C on both ends, but 4" from one side of the cable there's a quarter-sized circle of hard plastic that has the USB-C cable going through it, with another USB-C port available on the side.

I hope we will see USB-C to HDMI and USB-C to DisplayPort "cables" which are not big fat massive dongles but really function more like just a cable.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ262LL/A/apple-29w-usb-c-...

No hub.

Not every device needs to fill every use case. Apple apparently has reason to believe that use cases that require simultaneously using the port for multiple purposes are rare enough among potential users of the MacBook that they don't need to support those use cases. If this particular product doesn't provide all of the features you need, there are other products available from Apple and other manufacturers with additional features.

They're supported actually, Type C allows hubs and chaining, and Apple already has two splitters (HDMI/Type C/Type A and VGA/Type C/Type A) for sale.

They're way too expensive ($80), but give Type C is a standard port I expect Amazon Essentials or Monoprice will fix that pretty soon.

And I expect Apple will make sure those don't work, just like they did with generic Lightning cables.

They couldn't use the USB trademark if they broke compatibility with other USB-certified products.

They own Lightning themselves so they can do whatever they want there.

I completely agree that my needs may not be the needs of everyone and actually, when we're talking about Apple, they tend to be changing ways of usage rather than following them.

Another perspective I've seen recently about this is that this new Macbook will probably make people change their habit towards something traditionally only for smartphones: you'll see people keep their computer untethered for the larger part of the day, and only plug it for energy during the night. So, basically, mobile first instead of plugged first. You then have a port constantly available for whatever you want to plug on the go.

The only solution? Couldn't you buy a bluetooth keyboard?

A bluetooth keyboard doesn't solve the problem of needing to plug the computer to a charger while using a USB key.

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